Saving Fred
by mmooch
Summary: Reasons behind Giles' decision not to help Angel during the Illyria situation.


**Saving Fred**

Summary: Reasons behind Giles' decision not to help Angel during the Illyria situation.

Warning: I don't know; maybe language and innuendo somewhere along the way.

Timeline: AtS season 5:15 _'A Hole in the World'_ and 5:16 _'Shells'_.

Challenge: None really, just a desire to see Giles _not_ be blamed for Fred's death in fanfic.

Thanks to my betas: AshDawnSoulmates, zigpal and AerynSpeedleCaine.

Disclaimer: BtVS/AtS characters belong to Joss Whedon / Mutant Enemy. I claim no rights to any copyrighted material. Please do not copy or take this story without my permission. Dialogue from .

* * *

ANGEL:  
(to phone) Himalayas? I thought she was in South America.

… (to phone) All right, look— (sighs)

What do you mean she's not on this plane? You just said— Astral projection? Well, is there any way to get her astral over to L.A.? Giles, this is an emergency. No. No, I'm not going— Don't put me on hold.

… (to phone) Yeah, I'm still at Wolfram & Hart . What does that have to do with anything? Yeah. I understand.

(throws phone against the wall; it shatters)  
We're on our own.

**

* * *

**

England

The Council was meeting to discuss this very situation when Giles got the call. As he hung the phone up, Willow asked with a saddened expression, "Why didn't you let me talk to him? I could have explained there is nothing we can do at this point."

Giles sent her a sympathetic look. They all knew how much Willow had liked Fred after meeting her the year before. "Because he would turn it around to be a failure on your part, not theirs," he explained. "They are the ones responsible for this. They didn't even call us until it was too late."

"But at least I could tell them that Fred is at peace now. Maybe that would help them not be so upset," Willow replied, the hope clear in her eyes.

Moving to the redhead's side and putting her arm over the other girl's shoulder, Buffy remarked, "They wouldn't be satisfied with that, Will, and you know it. Angel tried to get Cordy back from a higher plane a couple years ago. He knew where she was and he _still_ wanted to do it," she pointed out , not realizing that their information on that situation was incorrect.

"Yeah, at least we had ignorance going for us when we did it," Xander piped up, giving Buffy an apologetic look which she just smiled at. That water was so long under the bridge it was in the ocean now.

Dawn decided to add her two cents' worth, "Besides, we know that it's their fault for being at Wolfram & Hart anyway. Fact one: one of their people ordered the sarcophagus. Fact two: when we tried to slow things up at customs, Fred's ex signed the papers to get it pushed through."

When the younger brunette paused, Faith interjected, "Then there's the whole freakiness of why they are even there to begin with. These are the same people who hired me to kill Angel before I turned myself in."

"Not to mention they drove him so crazy that he locked a bunch of them in a room with Darla and Dru. Believe me, I almost went to stake him when I found _that_ out," Buffy said, shuddering with the memory of hearing the news. Her expression hardened as she continued, "Soul or no soul, that was wrong – even if they were evil lawyers. For them to willingly join forces with the Senior Partners' minions after all that… It'd be like Dawn going with Glory's minions after the tower incident."

Willow leaned into Buffy's embrace a little more. "I know all this. I just really liked Fred, and I'm sad she's dead."

"We all are, Will. She sounded really cool." Buffy bit her lip as she considered whether she should say what was on her mind. But they vowed after Sunnydale not to hold things back anymore. That way led to badness for the group. "However, you have to remember that she may have changed since they took over. Sure, it seemed like they were trying to make some changes, but it sounds like they were making more compromises. At least from what we've heard from our sources."

"How 'bout we have a memorial for her? Would that help you, Will?" Xander suggested. "Maybe a little witchy séance so you could say goodbye to her?" They all looked at Giles.

He smiled softly at the group. It was a testament to their friendship that they would mourn somebody just for the sake of one person. "That sounds like a marvelous idea. Let me know what you need for it, and who you'd like to attend from our group."

"Hey, not to put a damper on anything, but are we gonna let Fred's family know?" Faith inquired hesitantly.

Dawn's eyes narrowed in anger and disgust. "Shouldn't that be Angel's job?"

The elder Summers daughter sighed. "If they haven't accepted that she's gone, they probably won't think to tell the Burkles until they call looking for her." After considering it for a moment, Buffy added, "I think they should be given the chance to say goodbye."

"I'll let them know and just ask them not to tell Angel what we did," Willow said, relieved to have something to do besides grieve by herself.

Xander squeezed her hand in support. "Good idea. He probably wouldn't be happy to hear we 'gave up' so soon. I doubt it would matter to them how much work we put into trying to prevent this from happening."

"To be fair, we wouldn't be any better about the situation if it were one of ours that was lost. Especially if we were partially responsible for it," Buffy semi-defended her ex and his people.

**

* * *

**

Two days later…

Willow was there to greet Fred's parents when they arrived at the Council Headquarters. "Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Burkle. Thank you for getting here so quickly. Sorry we couldn't meet under better circumstances."

Shaking the redhead's hand, Roger Burkle then scratched his head, "I must confess that this business has us all confused."

"But we remember Fred talking about you several times over the last year. She really enjoyed your phone calls. To be honest, I couldn't understand what she was saying you discussed, but that wasn't very unusual for us," Trish Burkle added with a sad smile.

Just then Buffy walked up, and Willow grabbed her hand. "Oh, this is Buffy Summers, Head of the Slayer section of the Council. Giles is in a meeting with the Watchers right now; he's the Head of that section. Buff, this is Roger and Trish Burkle," she introduced everyone.

"You forgot to mention your title: Head of Magicks. Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Burkle." Buffy bit off the normal platitude of 'glad to meet you' since it felt wrong to say at the moment.

"Roger and Trish, please. Can you please explain what happened to our baby girl?" Fred's dad pleaded. All Willow had been able to tell them was that Fred had died a couple days ago and there was a memorial service for her in England. It didn't make sense to them, seeing as how Fred's friends and fellow demon-fighters were in LA.

Trish looked truly dismayed. "When we tried calling that law firm, we got this secretary that said she wasn't 'available', but wouldn't say what Fred was doing or when we could call back."

"Why don't we go to Buffy's office? It's closest, and we can talk privately there," Willow suggested, motioning with her hand.

* * *

As soon as the door closed, Trish blurted out, "Did she suffer?"

"Umm, we don't know that. We weren't there when it happened," Buffy hedged. They knew the process was probably the most excruciating thing a person could go through, but they didn't want to tell Fred's parents that.

Deciding to deal with the mechanics of the situation instead of Fred's final moments, Willow started her explanation, "We found out that an Old One's sarcophagus had left the Deeper Well. They are worse than any demons that are walking the earth now. We tracked it to LA and were trying to keep anyone from taking custody of it so we could get it back to the Well. Unfortunately, it got sent to Fred's lab, and she was infected."

Roger stared at the two young ladies intently. "There wasn't _anything_ somebody could do?"

Buffy ran a nervous hand through her hair. This part was tricky to tell. "Not really. If we tried to stop the process at that point, the essence of the Old One – Illyria to be precise – would spread like a virus between LA and the place where the Deeper Well is. That means thousands or possibly millions of people would have died. Plus, there was no guarantee that even if we did it that Fred would survive," she hastily added. Giving them a 'I hope you understand our choice' look, Buffy went on, "The best we could do was protect her soul."

Tilting her head in confusion, Trish asked, "What do you mean?"

"Normally the soul of the vessel taken over is consumed by the process of the Old One asserting itself. Except in this case, I put a ward up to let me know if the seal of the sarcophagus was ever disturbed. Once that happened, Buffy and I did a spell to protect the soul of the person," Willow told them. "We managed to extract her soul just before it would have been consumed."

Roger shook his head; all this magick and demon stuff went way over his head. "How?" he inquired anyway.

Buffy stood up, pulling the Scythe out of its case. She showed it to them and said, "Using this. It is a powerful source for good magicks. Willow used it and my strength as focal points to keep Fred alive until she could pull Fred's soul out with the Orb of Thesulah. After that, it was the simple matter of releasing her soul into the afterlife. We're sorry that we didn't save her life though," she apologized sincerely.

The Burkles could tell they were sorry about it. "Our girl wouldn't have wanted to live if it cost _anyone_ their life, much less that many people. Thank you for what you did," Roger replied.

"It was also a good thing for the _world_ that we took her soul when we did," Buffy added. "Fred's soul would have given Illyria the extra oomph she needed to be restored to her old self. By taking that away from her, she went from a global threat to a city threat. If we need to, we can stop her."

Willow spoke up, thinking maybe the Burkles didn't care about the world right now, "We're keeping an eye on the situation just to be safe."

Fighting her tears that her baby was gone, Trish asked, "You said we could say goodbye to her?"

The redheaded witch reached over and squeezed their hands. "Yeah. We can set up a séance, so to speak, in order to talk to her. We thought you'd want the chance to tell her you love her."

"You didn't invite her friends from LA though? She was awfully close to them," Roger pointed out. Something about all this sounded funny to him.

Buffy bit her lip, not wanting to bad-mouth Fred's friends to her parents. Their problems with the LA crew shouldn't taint the Burkles' relationship with them. "We are currently not sure where we stand with them and vice versa. They are more concerned about reversing this than they are in mourning Fred. If they want to do this and need our help, we will deal with that then," she added diplomatically, even if she wasn't sure they would help.

Knowing it was a touchy subject, Willow quickly moved onto a different topic, "Do you want to do this privately or should we make it part of the memorial service later today?"

"Is it alright if it's just us?" Trish wondered aloud.

Giving the older woman a gentle smile, Buffy offered, "Sure. Willow has to be here since she's the witchy one, but if you want me to go, I can."

Trish grabbed the blonde Slayer's hand before she could go anywhere. This was one of the girls who saved her baby's soul; she had to stay. "We don't mind if you stay. We just don't want a bunch of strangers around."

Willow set up the ingredients for the spell and spoke the ritual words.

"Hey, Mama…Daddy," Fred's spirit drawled when she came into focus. "Sorry that I died on y'all."

* * *

A/N: Stopping it there so there's no further smackdown of the LA folks. And I know the Burkles came by later and seemed like they didn't know, but pretend for a moment that they wanted to see if Angel and Co. would tell them the truth.


End file.
